Opioid crisis will take more than 4,000 lives in 2017

Newly released statistics show the grim toll the opioid crisis is having in Canada.

Dr. Theresa Tam, the country’s chief public health officer, said that the number of opioid-related overdose deaths are expected to surpass 4,000 by the end of the year.

That’s a significant increase above the 2,861 Canadians who died due to opioid-overdose related overdoses in 2016.

Compiled by Health Canada’s Drug Analysis Service (DAS), the statistics suggest that 60 per cent of heroin samples (seized by Canada Border Services Agency, the Correctional Service of Canada and police forces) contained fentanyl and/or its analogues.

Fentanyl is a powerful and potentially-deadly opioid that is increasingly finding its way into street drugs across the country. In 2016, 53 per cent of overdoses were due to illicit fentanyl.